Village of New Paltz aims to get tough on landlords

NEW PALTZ — Village officials are exploring strict, new regulations aimed at curbing landlord abuses.

BY JEREMIAH HORRIGAN

NEW PALTZ — Village officials are exploring strict, new regulations aimed at curbing landlord abuses.

The regulations, proposed by Mayor Jason West, would require landlords to sign off on a checklist that would include all the existing village and state housing regulations when they register with the village. Repeated failure to comply with the regulations could result in daily fines of $750. Repeated violations could culminate in denying landlords the ability to rent their buildings.

West said the need for an updated village housing code was driven by the fact that 75 percent of village residents are renters and the existing village codes had not been updated for at least a decade.

"A $50 fine for a code violation isn't exactly a disincentive that works any more," West said.

The village's building inspector, Kathy Moniz, has worked with West on the proposal, which still needs to be approved by the Village Board.

She said she agreed with many of the proposals and was working with a committee that includes four landlords and two board members. That committee has just begun reviewing the proposal and has yet to make any recommendations.

The idea for providing landlords — and their tenants — with a written checklist of requirements came from Atul Gawande's "Checklist Manifesto," which documents how airline pilots developed and continue to use checklists to prepare their crafts for flight.

Moniz said she thought the checklist idea was a "good tool," but that she had some doubts about another aspect of the proposal, which would make violations more quickly subject to a court hearing.

West, who is also a renter, compared the regulations to the state's traffic laws, in which everyone knows what violations are routinely enforced.

There are no new regulations included on the proposed list, West said. But a compilation of existing state and village regulations provided some surprises — such as the facts that clogged gutters are a violation, and all doors and windows need to be weather-stripped.